


that which we call a rose

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ben Solo Lives, Force Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi, Haunting, Identity Issues, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Pre-Relationship, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Kylo learns to live as Ben, with the help of someone who’s done it before.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	that which we call a rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ASadHermitStory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASadHermitStory/gifts).



Nature has reclaimed the ruins of Luke Skywalker’s academy. Shards of broken temple wall rise from waist-high grass, and native shrubs have overrun the hill leading down to where the huts used to stand. Insects swarm around stagnant ponds where water has collected on the pitted ground, full of algae and mud. Thorns snag the hem of the pilgrim’s cloak as he tramps through the foliage. He has drawn up his hood to conceal his face. There’s no one around to see him, but if there were, they’d see a familiar sight: a religious recluse, shrouded and harmless, picking his way across one of the galaxy’s countless sites of fallen Jedi glory.

They’d be partly right.

It’s taken him a long time to muster the courage to come back here. He thought he’d feel more: more grief, more purpose, more peace. He swats an insect that has settled on the back of his hand. Its tiny light goes out, leaving a pinprick hole in the Force and a smear of black blood on his skin. He feels nothing.

‘That was unnecessary,’ says a voice. The pilgrim startles, reaching for the place at his belt where his lightsaber used to sit. It’s empty, of course, just like this place is supposed to be empty, with no sentience except his own disrupting the flow of mindless life. ‘I thought you’d sworn off killing things just because they annoy you.’ Whirling around, he locates the speaker – a ghost. 

He’s used to ghosts. They’ve been with him like his own personal insect swarm since Exegol, making his skin crawl and his ears ring with their buzzing noise, flitting out of view for hours at a time and then landing on him just when he thinks they’re gone. Some of them have stingers. This one has piercing blue eyes and a trimmed beard. ‘Hello there,’ the ghost says.

‘Do I know you?’ Some of his ghosts are familiar: family and former Jedi, back from the great beyond to check on him. Many more are strangers, the restless spirits of people he met only for long enough to snuff out their lives. He has slaughtered far too many to remember every victim. But he’s sure he’d remember killing a face like that.

The ghost’s eyes twinkle. ‘You know my name,’ he says. ‘I had several of them when I was alive. You might prefer to call me Ben. Or would that make things confusing?’

It clicks: this is the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, his one-time namesake. It explains the rough desert linens he’s wearing. But he and this man are around the same age, while the Ben Kenobi he's heard Luke speak of... ‘I thought you’d be older.’

Obi-Wan quirks an eyebrow. ‘I’m not overly fond of your track record with mature-aged mentor figures. I thought we might try something different this time.’

This time. Why? None of his new ghost minders were anywhere to be seen back when their help would have made a difference. He doesn’t need a new mentor to replace the ones he killed. Not now. ‘It was never about their age,’ he says. ‘Take any form you like. But whatever you’ve come for, don’t get your hopes up. I don’t have much to offer these days.’

The truth is, he’s not much less dead than the ghost in front of him. Kylo Ren died on the ruins of the Death Star, impaled like a wild boar on his own blade. His stubborn corpse crawled its way to Palpatine’s citadel and gave everything it had left to keep the spark of the Jedi Order alive. Now he’s back here at the gravesite of his long-dead innocence. Looking for what, he hardly knows. Looking for answers. Looking for home. Looking to feel something, anything, besides numbness and anger.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Obi-Wan’s ghost. ‘My hopes are quite modest. I only came to meet a man named Ben.’

‘Then you’ll definitely be disappointed.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

The temple fire burnt everything to ash years ago, but this patch of ground is roughly where the wooden sleeping huts used to be. A boy named Ben once called this place home. The pilgrim lays his bedroll down. The ghost just watches, smiling his annoyingly steady smile.

* * *

There’s a waystation in the Western Reaches, a once-rich mining colony that now serves as a hotbed of illicit trade. It’s the kind of place where masks are common and no one ever asks your name. It’s a perfect temporary home for a hunter tracking a cell of First Order remnants.

‘I’m not convinced this quest will be good for you,’ says Obi-Wan’s ghost. His lack of corporeal form hasn’t stopped him from taking up the whole cramped inn bed, leaving his companion to camp on the couch. ‘Killing enemy agents is still killing.’

‘You killed enough enemies during the Clone Wars.’ The stories are in every history book, and on the lips of everyone who ever had a friend of a friend whose second cousin’s husband’s niece once fought alongside the legendary General Kenobi.

‘Yes, but our dispositions are different. You’re too attached, Ben. You have too many fears and desires to be trusted wielding a weapon in the name of the light. When you kill those First Order fugitives, it won’t be out of duty – it will be personal. That’s not the Jedi way.’

‘Then it’s lucky I’m not a Jedi.’

‘You’re padawan Ben Solo, are you not?’

The hunter laughs, but he’s not amused. He tugs a strand of hair. It’s long enough to hold a padawan’s braid – not that he ever wore one back when he answered to that name. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘My mistake. I’ll just have to wait, then. He’s bound to show up eventually.’

‘It’s not funny, you know. This name joke you keep making.’ He swallows. The air in the room is stuffy and stale, its environmental controls calibrated not for the guest’s comfort but for the owner’s profit margin. It’s exactly what he paid for. It still puts him in a bad mood. ‘It’s thanks to me the people who gave me that name are dead. How can I go back to wearing it like nothing happened?’

The outburst causes no change in Obi-Wan’s calm, faintly amused expression. Nothing ever does. ‘You could wear it in their honour. Or because it reminds you of another dashingly handsome young man who once answered to it.’

He ignores the bit about _dashingly handsome,_ even though it’s true. ‘I hated my name so much. My whole life, everyone expected such big things from me. The child of two war heroes, descended from Luke Skywalker and named after Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was too much to live up to. Being Ben Solo meant I was never allowed to just be me.’

‘And who are you, exactly? Who do you think you would have been if your parents had named you Bob or Heath or Adam?’

He ignores that, too. Rolls over on the tiny couch and tries to make himself comfortable.

‘If you like,’ says Obi-Wan after a few more sighs and creaks, ‘you can join me in bed.’

They’d have to lie close to fit together on that mattress. He doesn’t hate the thought. Doesn’t know quite how to feel about it. ‘Can’t you vanish into the aether or wherever it is you go when you’re not haunting me?’ he snaps. ‘Ghosts don’t need beds.’

‘It’s not about need. I happen to very much enjoy being in bed. You might, too, if you gave it a chance.’

‘Why are you still here?’

‘We’ve been over this. I came to meet–’

‘A man named Ben. I know.’ He’ll stay on the couch, then, and if he cricks his neck, so be it. ‘Whatever. Enjoy your stupid bed.’

* * *

In the gleaming matter stream of hyperspace, he sets controls to auto and tries for a nap in the pilot’s seat. It’s not to be.

‘Where are we going this time?’ Obi-Wan’s ghost asks, feet propped on the dashboard.

He doesn’t know. He fired up his ship on impulse because he wanted to go _somewhere,_ but he has nowhere to go and no one to go there with. The emptiness eats at him today. Every step he’s taken since Exegol has felt like getting lost.

‘Of course you’re lost,’ says Obi-Wan, reading his thoughts. ‘How can you know where you’re going if you don’t even know your own name? It must be exhausting. Me, I’ve got my work cut out. If anyone asks, I can just tell them I’ve come to meet a man named Ben. It keeps things simple.’

Stars flash by outside the viewport, fused into a lightstream blur. ‘If you meet this man named Ben,’ the pilot says at last, ‘what are you going to tell him?’

‘Oh, nothing at all,’ says Obi-Wan. And then, in response to the glare: ‘I’m not being cryptic. The man I’m looking for, Ben, he’s had enough of the last generation telling him what to do.’

‘Then why the hell are you here? Why you?'

Obi-Wan’s expression changes. For the first time since he manifested at the temple, he’s not wearing his wry smile. ‘I had a brother once,’ he says. ‘He had multiple names, just like you and I. But the last time I saw him in life, I called him by the wrong one. I didn’t live long enough to forgive myself for it.’ His eyes are deep, liquid wells. His face is very close. ‘Before you ask, no, I’m not looking for a brother in you. Or a brother’s grandson.’

‘Then what are you looking for? I swear on what’s left of my miserable life, if you say a man named–’

‘I’m looking to make it right,’ says Obi-Wan. ‘After I lost my brother, I was alone for a long time with my grief. I took the name Ben because I couldn’t bear to be my old self anymore. I’d like to see it cleansed of that baggage.’

 _Cleansed._ If he lays his hands on it – him, the corpse of Kylo Ren – the name will never come clean again.

‘You’re wrong,’ says Obi-Wan. ‘But I have no shortage of time to wait until you realise it. Now. Where did you say we were going again?’

He still doesn’t know. He sets new coordinates at random, and as he sits back in the pilot’s chair for the journey, Obi-Wan’s immaterial hand comes to land feather-light and cold on his.

He doesn’t pull away.


End file.
